Outdoors: Perch are spawning in early spring

Published Monday March 10, 2014 at 11:16 pm

Updated Tuesday March 11, 2014 at 12:07 am

When our iced-over waters thaw in early spring, it's time for yellow perch to spawn. They do so in large schools at night over shallow weed beds, triggered by rising water temperatures that approach 45 degrees.

They also may be affected to some extent by subtle changes in light intensity, but that's a subject that needs more research and is likely a far less important stimulus.

After all, our winters are so variable, and the curtain of ice that makes a pond bottom dark one year could be entirely missing another year.

Interestingly, perch egg formation requires a chilling period for the female perch. Without their bodies getting cold during the winter, the eggs won't begin internal development. Because of that critical reproduction requirement, putting a power plant with outflowing hot water on some perch waters would not be permitted.

During spawning, females are attended by several frenzied males and abandon their eggs immediately after dropping them. This is probably the best time of year to catch the caviar-filled, sweet delicacies at their heaviest weight.

Not many freshwater fish come close to the flavor of ocean fish, but fresh fried perch are in the running. They're so delicious and abundant now that many ice fishermen choose them over much larger giant pike, bass and pickerel. The fact that perch school means that if you catch one, you're likely to hook many more.

A 12-inch perch is a very good fish. Our state record is a 2-pound, 12-ounce giant caught in 1979 in South Watuppa Pond, Fall River. Wayne Andrews flirted with the record, recently catching a 2-pound, 7-ounce fish in a secret pond down the Cape.

Those local monsters, though, are a far cry from the world-record 4-pound, 3-ounce New Jersey perch caught in 1865. Contradicting Bergmann's Rule (i.e., a species gets larger as it occurs farther north), this fish grows larger in southern, warmer waters. Females are significantly heavier than males of an equal age.

Not every local pond, however, reaches its potential for perch production. Pike and pickerel, which both also spawn early, venture into the same close-to-shore necklace of vegetation to deposit their eggs. The problem for them all is the traditional, annual draw down of dammed waters.

Each fall, generally well after Labor Day, many shoreline residents seek to lower waters, a practice that once was justified for cleaning out debris, repairing docks and retaining walls. But there are consequences to lowering the waters. Regulations enabling drawdowns no earlier than Nov. 1 were introduced to mitigate those problems, if the waters could be refilled naturally by April 1.

Richard Hartley, MassWildlife's fisheries expert, explained to me why the questionable practice can have negative consequences. Too often, the critically vital aquatic vegetation near the shoreline is left high and dry from drawdowns, diminishing large portions of a water's spawning habitat.

Not only do fish get concentrated in smaller volumes of water, amphibians that burrow in a pond's mud can be frozen while they're hibernating. Shorelines need to be refilled no later than April 1, a date that would satisfy the needs of many early spawning fish.

While drawdown ponds can refill by then in years with adequate winter precipitation, some ponds end up with a necklace of bare ground after a winter of little precipitation. No aquatic weeds mean no place to spawn. A great example of a local water that is detrimentally drawn down is Indian Lake.

The fishing there could be much better if it were managed differently. In the words of Hartley, "each fall, there's a dramatic drawdown that turns the lake into a churned up chocolate soup." Since Indian Lake doesn't fill up soon enough in the spring, a possible hotbed for pike fishing never gets a chance to show its potential.

One recent motivation for drawdowns on many local waters is to eliminate choking vegetation. While many ponds have weed problems because of too much pollution exacerbated by incoming waste and runoff, the drawdowns are an expedient solution affording only temporary results, in Hartley's words, "like mowing a lawn." And for some species of invasive plants, the drawdowns can actually increase their presence.

While many shoreline residents practice drawdowns each year, restrictions currently enforced are marginally beneficial. If we want to better manage these waters for optimum fish populations, we need to question on a case by case basis whether we should permit them at all.

Spring stocking coming

Trout fishermen, meanwhile, are anticipating spring stocking in a few weeks. Massive stocking doesn't begin until waters are tested and proven to have both adequate oxygen and safe pH levels. Without wind mixing air into surface water, iced-over waters at the end of winter have depleted oxygen levels.

Melting ice and snow can additionally introduce dangerous levels of acidity stored from atmospheric pollution all at once. Increased acidity emanating from the smokestacks to our west has been destructive to numerous local aquatic species, including amphibians, brook trout and even mayflies.

Rumor has it ...

Don't always believe unconfirmed reports. There were rumors of a 14-plus-pound largemouth caught last week through the ice.

Erik at Tom's Wholesale Bait in Middleboro confirmed they actually weighed a 16-pound catfish, caught through the ice on a shiner by a very surprised angler at East Taunton's Lake Rico. Many anglers this season are glad they drilled big holes. This fish had an 18-inch girth.

Another rumor turned out to be true. Dave Lemieux at D&G Bait & Tackle in Leicester weighed in a 17.8-pound Chanel catfish caught through the ice in Brooks Pond in the Brookfields. Lemieux also reported that Gary Hare took a 4-pound, 8-ounce brown trout out of South Pond.